Jacques Cortelyou

Cortelyou arrived in Nieuw Amsterdam from Utrecht, Holland, where he had been born to French Huguenot parents.

Cortelyou had studied mathematics and land-surveying and served first in Nieuw Amsterdam as tutor to the children of Cornelis van Werkhoven, to whom the Dutch West India Company had granted a tract of land called New Utrecht.

In 1660 he designed Bergen Square site of the first town within the present borders of the state of New Jersey to receive a municipal charter.

[5] (The Bergen and Cortelyou families subsequently intermarried several times, indicating some degree of familiarity.

His most well-known accomplishment was his map of early lower Manhattan, executed in 1660, and known as the Castello Plan.

The Labadist missionary Jasper Danckaerts recorded a visit to his Long Island home in 1679 on the Nyack Tract: Jacques is a man advanced in years.

Cortelyou's map of New Amsterdam (the Castello Plan ).
A black, circular seal with a notched, outer border. The center contains a shield or crest with a crown atop it. In the shield is a beaver. Surrounding the shield are the words "SIGILLVM NOVI BELGII".